A WELCOME centre for UK-bound illegal migrants in Calais will be partially paid for by British taxpayers, it emerged today.

Taxpayers will be contributing to the cost of the £2.35-million-a-year shelter, and the bill will be added to the £12million that the British government has already pledged to the French port town.

Bernard Cazeneuve, French minister of the interior, visited Calais yesterday to sign an agreement to ensure that the facility will be open by January at the latest.

Mr Cazeneuve announced that the centre will have "a budget of more than €3million a year, which the state will be asking the European Union for".

While Britain currently pays more than £8billion a year to the EU, it is not clear how much of that will go towards the centre.

It has been confirmed that the centre will be located close to the docks, where migrants try to get on lorries every day, and will serve at least 1,500 meals a day as well as provide heating, toilets, showers and beds for the migrants.

It's a risk that we're taking, above all for our reputation

Jean-Marie Alexandre

But aid groups have since warned that it could turn into an expensive 'ghetto' that will attract thousands more migrants trying to cross the border.

Other concerns suggest the area could become the new Sangatte - a Red Cross centre which became overrun by migrants before it was shut down in 2002.

Jean-Marie Alexandre, president of La Vie Active (Active Living) which will be running the centre, has confessed that it will not be an easy project.

"It will of course be complicated," said Mr Alexandre.

"It's a risk that we're taking, above all for our reputation. In this matter, we have more to lose than we have to gain.

"We will be managers of this welcome centre on the condition that it is legitimate and that security is assured."

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Andy Silvester, campaign manager for the TaxPayers' Alliance, said that British taxpayers will be "furious" at the idea of funding the welcome centre.

"British taxpayers will be furious, especially on top of the £12 million already committed to security in Calais," he said.

"This is a French problem, and it should be for the French to deal with it."

This elaborate plan comes a week after Natacha Bouchart, Mayor of Calais, warned that thousands of illegal migrants gathering in her town are "prepared to die" to take advantage of Britain's generous benefits system.

Giving evidence to the House of Commons home affairs select committee last Tuesday, she said migrants saw the UK as an "El Dorado" thanks to the £36-a-week handouts on offer to asylum seekers.

French authorities estimate that there are around 2,500 illegal migrants - mostly Iraqi, Syrian, Ethiopian and Eritrean - now seeking to get across the Channel from Calais.